September 12, 2010

I’m on the road, headed to Minnesota for my HDR & LR workshops. It’s a month trip with my wife and kids and we’re getting to see amazing things. Many of which were in Yellowstone. I just did an episode on Photo Couch on Yellowstone, so if you listened to that, you know I was awed by what we saw there.

We discovered Clepsydra at the Paint Pot Geysers during our first drive into the park. Just in front of it out of the frame is the bubbling Spasm Geyser. It turned out to be an incredible sunset and after walking the boardwalks a bit, I knew that this was what I wanted to focus on. I set up the tripod and spent some time planning my frame in a way to being out a beautiful but ghostly feel. This is the result.

For Photographers. How it was made:
I don’t like to be boring, but I’m going to get a bit technical for those of you who want it. The rest can just enjoy the sunset. Because this scene was so stunning I did a few setups, but as I mentioned in the last Photo Couch I’m trying to take more time in composing an planning my fine art images. In the end I think we end up with better work by doing so, than just trying to shoot every angle.

Read More

July 15, 2010

by Gavin Seim: Dynamic range is a big deal in photography and I’ve been making a point to study it over the past few years. Last week I joined Kerry Garrison on the CameraDojo podcast, for a new episode on HDR. In fact however, it’s not just a discussion of traditional HDR, but on all things dynamic range.  It’s always fun guesting on other shows (not to mention a lot less work) and I think we pulled together something good here.

Thanks to Kerry for having me. Head over to CameraDojo to give it a listen. Then stay tuned because there’s also a brand new PPS Roundtable coming real soon.

Read More

April 15, 2010

OK it’s Time for some fun. Since Seim Effects started we’ve been saving so much time editing that I say we need to kick back for a few minutes, relax, get some free Lightroom presets, perhaps win a prize, get some tips, laughs and best of all have a good time. You’ll find all this inside our Seim Effects Disorganized Photographer FolderMaze so lets do it.

Many of you are probably asking, what the heck is a FolderMaze. Well as photographer I think we’ve all experienced the hunt for files we placed somewhere on our computer like a needle in a haystack. FolderMaze is a reminder of why it’s good to stay organized and lots of fun as well. It’s an idea I came up with recently (though I’m sure I’m not the first) where you take a bunch of folder and search for the Golden Trophy in the folders. As a side note, I even registered the domain name foldermaze.com in case I find an idea that takes off.

But why are you still reading? Download the maze below, unzip and follow the instructions inside. Then go for the Gold. If you get there soon you can win a FREE Seim Effects editing pack of your choice. Good luck… Gav

Download The FolderMaze ZIP

Some Windows users experience file problems due to the large structure of folders. If you are having issues unzipping you can try one of these alternate packages.

You may need to download 7Zip (win) Or ZIPEG (Win/Mac) to unpack the alternate packages. These are free Zip utilities.

UPDATE (Windows Users): NOTE: This information if only regadirng this Game. All our effects packs are still wornking fine on Win and Mac – The maze seems to work great on Mac, but it seems Win does not allow folder paths longer than 255 character total length. I’ve tried to find a solution, but the Win OS cannot handle the depth of the folder structures in the maze and it causes problems. Using one of the alt packages, some Win users are able to get the maze to unpack and use it, but they may experience issues where windows does not allow them to delete the files when finished (again due to the path limitation in Win). To delete, users may need to go into the maze and delete blocks of folders from the inside to shrink the path length until the main folder can be deleted.

I know it sounds crazy that this would be a problem and I’m as frustrated as you, but it’s a limitation of the Win operating system. Win users are still welcome to try the maze, and while it should do no damage to your computer, you may have a few hassles getting it to unpack, delete ect. In the future I’ll see if it’s possible to build mazes that have shorter overall paths, but it may make them too basic to be a real challenge. Other than that we can only hope that Microsoft fixes that issue. Sorry to exclude some of you, but I had no idea Win would have a problem with this as the entire folder maze concept is very simple. I’ll see what I can do as I learn more.

Read More

February 21, 2010


Mouse over images to view the “before effect” version.

A little something for you Apple Aperture users today. Aperture 3 released and they FINALLY added support for presets. I was stoked. It’s not perfect and while I still prefer Lightroom myself (no need for you Lighroom users to worry. I won’t be forgetting you) it does have real presets functionality that works well..

Anyways I jumped right in and started playing with presets and seeing what I could do if I got under the hood in the Adjustments panel. It’s not the same as Lightroom, but there’s some powerful tools. I made this pack of 6 presets that cover a variety of looks including B&W, basic enhancement and color tones. There even a preset that boosts dynamic range for a mild HDR like effect.

I plan to keep looking in Aperture and if I see enough interest I may consider a complete workflow collection of presets like I offer for Lightroom, so if you’re interested let me know. Download an enjoy. I’ll paste some basic usage instructions below as well… Gav

UPDATE. 03/11. Gavin has also released a full Aperture presets collection called LightFlow. There’s a free sampler from that pack here.

– Download FREE Aperture Light Study1 Presets –

Read More

January 15, 2010

Click To Listen>> Photography Podcast. PPS #65
Review in iTunesVote on Podcast AlleyDirect Podcast Feed


Gavin Seim

This week Gavin just talks about things. Life, photography, business stress, some selling ideas, working with venues and more.

Podcast #65 forum discussion:

Gavins Lightroom Power LIVE online is next week.

Notable Time Indexes:

  • 00:00 Some personal thoughts from Gav.
  • 13:10 Talking shop and stuff.
  • 32:45 Promoting to venues.
  • 45:45 Thoughts on selling large fine art.

Article about signing and branding your prints.

Gavin’s fine art images.

The Wall Portrait article.

Promo codes on the deals page.

Read More